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The Core Tenets of Rational Egoism
Ordinary science tries to explain the universe's behavior using observations of physical phenomena and certain beliefs which, in ordinary science, must be assumed true for further thought to occur. As a discipline, philosophy is the branch of science that tries to explain and refine those fundamental beliefs that the rest of science builds upon. Here are the four core levels of philosophy and what they specifically mean in Rational Egoism. Metaphysics: This is the branch of philosophy that tries to define what exists and what does not exist. It tries to answer the question " What is true about all things, even the object we call the universe?" As you live, you experience innumerable phenomenon, and to understand them metaphysically , you must ask "What quality do all these things have in common, that makes them exist?" The answer to that question is in the statement "a=a", in which "a" is a variable standing for any thing that is. This equation, known as the reflexive property or law of identity, says that each thing is itself. For example, it says that at each moment, I am myself. It implies that reality is real, that truth is true, and that existence exists. Nothing can be found to refute this law, because if "a=a" could be disproven, it would imply some truth to the statement "a doesn't =a". If the latter statement was true, then truth would not be truth, and so nothing would be true, not even the statement "a doesn't =a." Because the statement "a doesn't =a" can't be true, and the law of identity is the only alternative belief, the reflexive property is what all things have in common. This means that the universe can't be the product of a mind, because in a mind, imagination can make things seem to not be themselves. If the world was subjective, existing within a mind, the reflexive property would be nowhere because all would be imaginary. Because that property applies to all things, reality must be in an objective state, driven by impersonal and predictable laws, not a potentially whim-driven, godlike mind. This is why Precept 1 says that reality is objective, because the law of identity, and the possibility of a god are mutually exclusive. Epistemology: This is the branch of philosophy in which one tries to determine what certainty means. Basically, this science tries to answer the query "How can we know anything?" Reason is the way of thinking that completely accepts the law of identity, and any other way of thinking fails, to some degree, to accept that "a=a." Since the law of existence is true, mental conclusions reached through the best possible reasoning must be the most accurate ideas possible. For instance if I observed my sippy cup fall to the floor every time I knocked it off my high chair, I could use the reflexive law to think "an unchangeable quality of something is an unchangeable quality of something, i.e a law is a law; the more times I observe my cup reach the floor when I push it off my tray, the more likely it is that a law of the universe is causing things to behave that way; I've observed the cup fall to the floor every time I moved it off my table, so it's right to believe that a physical law is involved here, and because of that, it's correct to think that my cup will always end up on the floor when I force it off my tray." In sum, reason is the one tool which can give you any chance of understanding reality, because reason completely accepts reality's first law, that of identity. You do not have to do anything to be yourself, but you have to do something to be rational: focus on and accept reality's law. Because of this, accepting that a=a is the start of rationality, so metaphysics is one part of epistemology. In other words, knowing the world's fundamental nature is the first step in knowing how to acquire further knowledge. This is part of why the name "Rational Egoism" starts with "Rational" instead of "accepting-of-the-law-of-identity", because being the second is a part of being the first. Ethics: Ethics and morality are often mixed up, but ethics is the attempt to learn what should be done or not done, while morality is the state of doing what should be done and avoiding what shouldn't be done. What should be done? To answer this question, one must ask "what is necessary for anything to be done?" The answer to the second question is the life of the person asking the question, because the degree to which your body and mind function healthily together is the degree to which you can act. Essentially, you can be moral to the degree to which you are alive. Therefore, morality can't be any set of actions destructive to the individual's life, because if it were, morality would consist to some extent of destroying that which makes morality possible, i.e the life of the actor. In essence, morality is selfishness. Selfishness is neither hedonism nor a desire to destroy others for the sake of destruction, because all that it means is the pursuit of what will most protect and affirm the individual's long-term existence and the expression and honing of their talents. Here's another way to understand how morality is self-interested action: choosing to value a thing requires a conscious, ethical decision, but how can you trust and value the thing and the decision without first and foremost trusting and valuing the being who made the decision? How can you be moral if you claim that morality is not service to oneself, and are thus not valuing most the entity who makes morality possible- yourself? This is where Egoism comes into Rational Egoism. Politics: